


Some Problems Come with Horns

by NothingTame



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:00:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NothingTame/pseuds/NothingTame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a lost demon in a crazy new world. Work in Progress. Most likely smut. Not sure yet. I have no idea where I'm going with this. Original story, copyright of me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lust had been on the streets of this strange city for days and was only just now beginning to get desperate. 

Somewhere in this expansive city, with its vendors and magic and people and rats and slavers, was a shelter for displaced folk like her. 'Denizens of the Cosmos', they called them, one of the random persons to fall through the Hole and in to this new realm. 

Nobody seemed to know what the Hole was. When Lust had found it, it was at the center of a broken magic circle, sucking in everything it could into its sunny depths. With a choice, she'd have stayed clear of it but as it was, she was pushed. 

It wasn't so bad as places go, and in retrospect, hunger was the only thing she had to complain about. At least here she was free to do as she wanted (to a point), and she was treated the same as the other wanderers through the area. The fact that she was very obviously a demon meant nothing either, although the occasional slaver or magic-user would get hand-twitchy and excited when they spotted her horns in the crowd. They were easy enough to avoid, however, so long as she stuck to hiding and not running. Running always seemed to bring attention to a person. 

She knew what they saw; short in stature but wide in the hips and broad in the shoulders, thick thighs, small feet, her alabaster horns splitting out on either side to crown an endless wealth of thickly curling and often tangled gold hair. Her blue-skin, a paler shade of cobalt, was also a novelty here as far as she could tell, the dark elves the only ones to come close in tone and even they strayed closer to black and violet than a true blue. She'd found clothes moments after she fell through the Hole so she wasn't completely vulnerable but despite her best efforts she seemed to stand out. 

It was something she had a little experience in, however. When you're the only blue demon in a sea of crimson Other Kin, it's going to make a body stand out no matter how hard you try to hide. While she'd inherited her mother's shape and figure, she'd definitely received her coloring from her father, blue and golden-curled.

Compared to that, she had the advantage in Eda. With the ever expanding city, it's dusty spires, sandstone buildings, constantly being added to and cleared in and renovated, there were plenty of places to hide and during the daylight hours the slavers were almost completely non-existent. Without a place to call home, however, nighttime was looking more daunting by the moment. 

That concern wasn't as distracting as the one that plagued her more immediately, fraying her senses and making her belly hurt. Insistent, pressing hunger consumed most of her focus and made it harder for her to pay attention to the suspicious glances, the shifting crowd, the shadows that drifted and flexed nearby. Twice that day she'd come close to getting snatched not by slavers but by an overeager mage, hot-heated and anxious to make his mark by the mutters he'd made while he struggled to pin her with his spells. 

"You couldn't just study and summon a demon like you're  _supposed_ to?" she'd jeered, panting as she spun from his grip and clambered up an alley wall. His answering curses made her cackle, but in the back of her mind she scolded herself for getting careless. She'd dodged him earlier, slipping from his shadow only to have him arrive later when he followed her to her favorite haven in the city.

The Shade Quarter wasn't as ominous as the name made it seem. It was quiet, sheltered by giant shadowy oaks by day and lit by wizard-lights held in carved marble lanterns by night. Lust wasn't exactly certain what kept most of the riff-raff at bay but she'd taken full advantage of it the last couple nights, sleeping in the biggest oak tree in the center of the quarter proper. She hadn't quite made it over the wall before the mage had found her and she hoped he'd just consider it coincidence. 

By moon-rise, her hopes turned out to be in vain.

And that was how she met the Constable. 

 

* * *

  

The city of Eda employed law enforcement in the form of the Watch, a collection of upstanding soldiers who policed the streets and kept the residents safe and reassured. While the Watch was relatively uncorrupted and, according to rumor, mostly uncorruptable, it wasn't as large a force as a city of its size warranted. It wasn't uncommon for captains of the Watch to delegate the smaller wards and quarters to mercenaries to make up for this, and the result was a mixture of good and bad. A citizen knew that in the presence of a Constable, the chances of fair judgement and stalwart protection were almost guaranteed. The same could not be said of a Squad-member and it was always a gamble unless an individual was vouched for by a Watchman.

Lust met  _her_ Constable when the mage she'd tried so hard to shake tracked her to the Shade Quarter. 

The demon wasn't in any real danger. Mostly it was annoying her, stuck in her tree while the little whelp of a caster wriggled his fingers and spat his incantations. On occasion he'd score a close shot and tangle a tress around one of her horns, but that was about it. His facial expressions were very entertaining, and she would make wry comments from time to time wondering aloud if he was having bowel movements or just out of mana. 

After about a half hour, the ruckus the caster was trying very hard  _not_ to make began to garner attention from the local residents, and soon enough a Constable was called to check on things.  _  
_

Lust saw him before the mage did, the officer walking carefully through the entrance, rifle hefted and the dark blue cloak of the Watch billowing out behind him. Discretely as she could so as not to warn her little nuisance, she watched him take in the situation and stalk silently across the center yard. 

It must have been amusing on some level. Here she was, squatting on a branch, high in this magnificent old oak tree, her sandals tucked under her, messy trews and baggy shirt, hair tangled about her horns for all the mage's efforts to wrangle her down with his summoning spells and incantations of demand. The caster was flailing about underneath her, right under her, swearing up a storm about how she should obey, it was in her nature to submit, blah blah blah. 

She wasn't very gracious about it, nor polite. She was tired, she was hungry, and if she'd had a clearer head she might have thought twice before flipping the caster the bird and accidentally dropping a rock on his head. 

Honestly, Lust thought she'd miss. It's dumb luck that she got the man right in the nose.

The mageling cried out in pain, clutching his face as blood began to seep through his fingers. The demon winced but couldn't contain her laughter, the chortle slightly hysterical and definitely rude. Her harasser heard it and, infuriated, groped for the rock, gripped it, hissed a spell and threw it at her with a malicious grin. 

 _And thus, bad ideas spread_ , she thought as the charmed rock caught her in the head. 

Her grace gone and her balance ruined, she toppled from her perch and landed hard on the ground below, the air knocked from her lungs and her head bouncing off the packed earth. 

Things got pretty chaotic and crazy after that. She was fairly certain that at one point, the mage was kneeling on her chest. Her memory of her shirt tearing and the evidence after suggested it was him, but she could only guess at this when she regained most of her senses some time later. 

Curled in a ball on her knees, struggling to breathe around the squeezing in her chest, she was vaguely aware that there was a scuffle going on,  complete with grunting and swearing, before a shout and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. The scuffle quieted and all she could hear was heavy breathing. 

There was the sound of footsteps as someone came near. It was instinct that had her flinching when rough fingers brushed her head. A man hushed her and she caught the smell of pine, leather, gun oil, and clean sweat. It was not the mage touching her this time. 

"Shh,  _kin,_ I just need to see where he got you," his baritone voice said lowly. After a moment of tilting her head this way and that, he whistled softly. "I don't often see your kind bleed, he got you good. Are you alright?" His words, so sincere, coaxed her to look up.

Most of her interaction with the Watch had thus far been at a distance, but they had a decent enough reputation that she wasn't afraid of the man before her. It was this reason that caused her initial confusion of her response to him.

She was shaking under his careful finger tips as he plucked bits of leaves from the gash at her brow and untangled her hair from her pale horns. She didn't think she could possibly be afraid of him. Why was she trembling so hard her teeth threatened to chatter?

Understanding dawned when she caught his eyes glancing down, his cheeks flushing before his gaze darted away and back to her face. Her shirt was torn, hanging off her shoulder and gaping to her waist with her skin bare beneath the garment. It was then she recognized the taste across her tongue, the energy trickling carefully in to her, filling her. 

Lust was not a full demon, at least not in a way most Other Kin would consider. Her parents were not only different castes but different  _species_ , therefore she was unpredictable and unexpected. Like most demons, however, she fed on energy, and like the succubus demon her mother was, Lust fed specifically on desire. Unlike her mother, Lust did not need to drain a person's life force, but rather nursed from the energy left behind when the desire was for  _her._

In her previous world this had never been a problem. She'd been kept in very close proximity to many that wanted her, so she was never hungry and always sated, shackled and held in a place that never changed but always fed her. In retrospect, she'd taken it for granted, but she knew she'd much rather be roaming and free and  _starving_ than held down as a slave ever again. 

Her plan had been to seduce a beggar or a guard or some green lad, someone harmless that she could arouse and inspire with smiles and words and perhaps more, feed a little from many until she was sated without subjecting herself to anything unsavory. Everyone would have made out well, she might have even found herself with a ready supply of 'food' for the duration of her stay.

Here it was, however, like some sordid tale shared between noblewomen, the needy damsel and the accommodating white knight, with the Constable landing in her lap like a gift from the Gods. 

"Worse shape... than me... I'd wager," she gasped, eyes flicking to the bruises on his face, his rumpled clothes. He had a cut of his own just above his eye, the blood threatening to drip and obscure his vision. He wasn't young but he wasn't what mortals considered old either, hardened by experience and time, his jaw square and his dark hair flicked with silver at his temples. He had gray eyes, his skin an even tan, and there was a scar that marked him from cheekbone edge to angular jawline. 

"She speaks!" he rumbled, a smile showcasing dimples in both his cheeks. "Does the lady have a name?"

"You're bleeding."

He drew back a little at that, dabbing at the cut above his eye. It wasn't until she saw his fingers that she realized what she'd done.

"No!" she gasped, wrapping both hands around his wrist and yanking his hand away. "Dammit! That was the same hand you just-" But it was too late. There on his fingertips, her bloody smeared with his. 

She jumped into his lap and grabbed his face before her thumbs worked on his gash, spreading it wide as he squawked in pain.

"Hey!" he yelped.

"Shit shit  _shit!_ Don't you people have  _any_ self-preservation at all? You don't just touch bodily fluids bare-handed, or rub someone else's into your own!" she gasped, trying to see, hoping that it didn't-

Oh but it did.  _Of course it did._ Her blood and his, running through his veins, as evidence by the mixing smear along his wound. 

 _Fuck._ Maybe _.... maybe I have time..._

In her efforts to save the stupid man from his (her!) mistake, she'd wound up in his lap with her bare chest in his face. Short but far from small, it would have taken a moment for him to wrestle her from his lap, which he should have done if he'd had any sense. Instead, she felt warm, rough hands slide across her skin, around her waist and under the tatters of her shirt to slide up her back.

_There was also no time for sense, it seems._

She should have pulled away, would have gone to find help or put distance between the two of them, but she was just so hungry, and it had been centuries since she'd felt this starved. 

It helped nothing that he smelled amazing too. 

With a moan she couldn't fight, she shuddered on his lap and under his hands, her arms winding around his neck to clutch his head to her. His stubbled chin stroked across her skin as his teeth skimmed over her clavicle, his hands pressing into her back to pull her closer. Needing to feel more, her desire stoked by experiencing his, she leaned back enough to pluck at the latches and buttons of his jerkin, peeling it off with his help and following quickly with the cotton shirt beneath it, his palms moving to cup her ass as soon as he both garments were tossed aside. 

Panting softly, Lust squirmed and twisted to drop aside her ruined shirt, running her fingers through his dark hair as soon as they were free. He was breathing hard too, hot breath on her skin as he mapped her throat with his mouth and teased just under her ear with sharp, clever teeth. She could feel his want for her, so sharp it was almost a  _need_ and it was heady, intoxicating, his desire pouring into her like dark, satisfying wine. 

 _-I am not supposed to feel what_  he _is feeling._

Amidst the chaos in her brain, that thought rang alone like a clear, silver bell.  _  
_

With willpower she'd never before experienced nor needed to harness, Lust gathered all of her strength, planted her hands on the Constable's shoulders, and  _shoved._  
  
The man toppled backward as she flung herself to the side, panting in the dirt as she tried to shake the fuzzy tendrils of desire from her mind. Her head turned when he groaned, watching him as he righted himself and clutched at his head. 

"Nngh... what's going on?" he slurred, his eyes glazed and his motions loose, like he'd just woken from sleep. "What's happening?" His gaze finally settled on her own, along with the frown clouding his features. "W..what did you do to me...?"

His shirt was the closest. She scrambled to her feet and snatched it with her, pressing it to her skin and resisting his smell and the sight of him naked and the desire that still wafted from him like pungent smoke. 

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to..." she tried to explain, but the hunch in his shoulders and his shift forward told her he meant to grab her, and she didn't know what would happen if he touched her again.

Nimble as a thief, she danced backwards, pulling his shirt around her as she spun around and fled into the shadows. 

"Wait!" he barked, anger in his voice.

 _Good_ , she thought.  _Maybe that will burn me out of your blood._ She hoped and indeed, the demon did pray. 


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Lust saw fireworks, in all their sparkling glory, she wondered if that's what the sky would look like when the worlds ended. Blazing bursts, spirits of fire and smoke and mystical science dancing across the musty night skies of Eda City. It was one of her favorite things to see and she'd had the fortune to see not two firework shows, but  _three._

The first time was about a day after she'd first come through, anxious and jittery, wearing clothes for the first time in ever, huddled in a tree not far from the garden built around the Hole in the Worlds. It'd been daylight when she'd come through, but she'd hid as soon as she could and was still there when darkness fell and a parade began to snake through the many winding streets.

Music played and people danced, waving little dangling lanterns on staves, laughing and chanting, the whole affair sinuous, chaotic, and joyous. She'd watched with wide eyes, unused to the sight of so many different kinds of people (elves, goblins, orcs, several horned creatures that weren't demons, the ever colorful race of humans, countless others she couldn't name), all together, moving as one, and when there came a shout and the first rocket shot off in to the air, she witnessed it with a delighted shout of her own that joined the chorus of people as they all collectively looked up.

It burst and sparkled explosively in the smoggy heavens, hiding the grime of the skies above the city in splendor and light, soon to be joined by another rocket, and another, all a different color from the last until the city lit up like high noon, acrid smoke and brimstone wafting through the streets.

It was a month of celebrating, she learned. Every week another parade and more fireworks, rounding out to five and then it would be a little more boring for another year.

Most of the citizens loved the fireworks. People of all walks would stand on their roofs or their balconies, or the streets in front of their homes and shops to look up and laugh and praise the blessings of the year. The most excited, though, were the children, and it were these that Lust laughed at the most as it was they that were often the most welcoming. 

When she could not resist the joy of those nights, she would stand in the streets with the rest of the people and children would draw her out and clutch at her hands, dance with her and about her with little bells and scarfs flicking about.

She saw an  _efreet_ , a demon who's species melded with the elements, his skin black, smokey and barely tangible, watching her from the front of a restaurant porch with his arms crossed over his chest and one eyebrow cocked. Amusement lit his features, his grand clothing bedecked with jewels and ribbons, sashes in jewel tones winding down his arms to crisscross over his wrists. His small, genuine smile widened when she 'appeared' at his side a moment later.

She could be silent here as she never could in the place she came from, a life full of traps and alarms that kept her immobile and half-scared all the time. Here her footsteps were silent, her touch light despite the heaviness of her curves, the strength in her bones; she scampered like a monkey but she could plow through a man like he was tissue paper. 

With the manners trained in most court demons, Lust stood at the  _efreet_ 's elbow, calm and patient, until he acknowledged her with a few low spoken words:

"Greetings, abyssal-sister. I've not seen a  _blue-skin_ in a long time."

She felt heat sear her cheeks but she kept her eyes level, watching the antics of the street. "Air master," she murmured in greeting, folding her hands before her and squaring her shoulders with pride. "I didn't think we were all that rare here as well."

He barked a laugh, looking down at her from his considerable height, powerful and solid despite the fact that he was transparent from the waist down. "Blue-skins are always different. I didn't think they'd deign low enough to fall through a Hole." His generous mouth split into a sharp grin that revealed obsidian teeth. "Nor beg on the streets for .... _what they need._ "

Her blush deepened. "I'm not like the others," she admitted. "My problems are different and far worse."

"Oh?" he asked, shifting to turn and face her openly "You don't tickle children in the streets for the  _joi_ they feed you? Do you go to orphanages then? Parks? Unless..." His eyes flicked to her horns, her mane of tangled hair, before he finally settled on her eyes. He gave pause, both brows disappearing into his inky hairline.

"You aren't-" he began. 

"Half-breeds come with their own unique problems, Air master," Lust sighed, dropping her gaze. "Especially when it comes to those of us who don't feed on  _tangible_ things."

Her words were met with silence and that suited her just fine; she didn't know him and anything he thought up  would be wrong. Still, he invoked a sense of trust in her, and as far as demons go, such a feeling was worth their life.  It was fortunate she was right.

"A precious commodity then," the creature rumbled. "Hmm. Our kind ought to help the other, when that other is in need." Lust didn't dare look at him, hope shooting aloft in side her like a star; she held very still, and waited.

"I suppose," he drawled slowly, "You haven't a place to stay, do you?"

 

 

* * *

 

Lust had no source of sustenance. She was hungry. She had no idea where she really was and if she could ever travel anywhere else. 

But she had a home. 

The  _efreet,_ named Allahan Chakalo, was an honorary member of the local Mage Guild, much to Lust's initial horror. As it turned out, however, this was the best place for an Other Kin to be. As a teacher, he could train the budding students techniques on combating malicious Other Kin, as well as how to summon  _proper_ _ly_ without compulsion but while still being safe. Lust gathered it was much like opening a window into another world and having a conversation through the open pane, only to close it when the conversation was over. 

Despite her attempts to reassure her that he wasn't binding his 'family' into unwilling servitude, she still didn't like it it. But she didn't have to and she didn't have much choice; the quarters he gave her offered protection and solitude and she could look over almost anything in exchange for that. At least for the time being. 

Allahan was very wealthy. No one wanted to cheat a demon of anything, especially without knowing how far his reach extended and how omnipotent he could be. So for the knowledge he provided the guild, he was paid a bull's weight in gold every quarter. 

It was piling up, to say the least. 

In the greener, cleaner part of Eda, there were manors and homes of exquisite splendor bought and built by nobility and businessmen alike. Allahan himself owned almost an eighth of all the property in the district, though a good half of it was public, like parks and gardens and the actual square. It was another investment, he said, in case the guild decided they'd learned enough from him. The taxes alone made his endless financials a long term venture. He would never want for anything so long as he was here and maintained those properties.

On his massive estate, there were several smaller buildings and homes, cloistered courtyards and cottages that he kept for various reasons, widespread along the acreage he lived on. Lust actually suspected at least one little villa belonged to a mistress, and another to a court mage under the  _efreet_ 's employ. Even with her aversion to magic users, Allahan Chakalo made her feel safe; she was not worried about mage's presence.  

Her cottage was closed in on itself, made of amber marble and wreathed in flowers, its outer wall high and opened with arched windows spaced along the edges. There was a garden and a pool, a study, a bedroom, and an open air entertainment room, as well as a bathing chamber and a kitchen she would never use. It was completely furnished, items wrought from iron (including the canopy bed!), another reason Lust felt safe here; while iron was deadly to fae and could render magics in general useless when presented in enough qualities, it did nothing to demons.

Allahan insisted on buying her a wardrobe. He eyed her Watchmen's shirt with open curiosity but never asked, noting how loose it was even belted around her middle, the hem spilling to mid-thigh. Reluctantly, she agreed to the new clothes but insisted on keeping her own for now. The tailor was scheduled to come in two days time.

Feeling safer than she had since she arrived, Lust distracted herself from her horrible hunger pains (which she had yet to reveal to her new patron, unwilling to expose that part of her nature for now) by exploring this part of the city. 

It was definitely cleaner here, filled with people who either cared nothing about the outside world or often away on business elsewhere. It was a shame, thought Lust, because it was so pretty. Trees and vines and gardens abounded, with the occasional fountain trickling down a hidden alley or avenue, birds perched in the branches to sing or squawk as they place, flowers of every color and size and shape imaginable budding, blooming, and dying positively everywhere.

If she cared about outward appearances, the demon might have felt awkward in her stolen shirt and cotton trews and weathered sandals, walking through these grandly crafted, veridian streets. As it was, she didn't, and with the threat of new clothes on the horizon, it never occurred to her she might look out of place.

Fortunately, someone noticed, and that someone called the Watchmen. 

 

 

 


End file.
